The Highwire with Del Bigtree - ANALYZING THE UNREST IN THE UK

Episode Date: August 17, 2024

After the tragic slaying of 3 young girls at the hands of a 17-year-old man in England, protests and riots have broken out throughout the UK. Tensions over mass migrations of immigrants, a rise in violent crime, and accusations of a 2-tiered police system are at a boiling point. And now, there are serious concerns over the media manipulation and an apparent authoritarian crack down on free speech.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

I want to take people's attention to what's happened in the UK right now. There's a lot unfolding there within this past week. Absolute tragedy. It's difficult to report on these things, but we have to because of what's coming on the back of this. And so what happened there was there was the tragic murder of three young girls. And if anybody didn't see this in the news, this is what the reporting has looked like around that. Take a look. Criminal violence on Britain streets.

More than 400 people have been arrested in the wake of disordial. around the country. Grief for three young girls tragically murdered has been seized upon by agitators looking for an excuse to damage and destroy. The sleepy seaside town of Southport became a scene of terror and grief. Three innocent young girls killed in a frenzied knife attack.

The suspect behind yesterday's attack isn't known to be Muslim, but a connection was drawn nonetheless. The Prime Minister travelled to Southport after laying a wreath at the police cordon. the police cordon. What are you going to change for our children? Our children are dying here because of you.

He was heckled, a measure of the anger many people are feeling here. Just before 8 o'clock, they met outside a mosque in the town, where a few hundred people threw bricks and fireworks at the windows. Riots involving hundreds of far-right anti-immigration protesters have erupted in several towns and cities. In Belfast, two, a hotel housing migrant. housing migrants was the target leading to clashes with police. As night fell, the protests got more violent.

These three police officers were injured. They are scenes that are now happening daily in towns and cities across the country. Saturday there was unrest in Stoke, Manchester, Bristol, Nottingham, Hull, Leeds, Belfast and Liverpool. With more yesterday in Rotherham, Tamworth, Bolton, Wainmouth and Middlesbrough. I won't shy away from calling it what it is.

Far-right thuggery. To those who feel targeted because of the colour of your skin or your faith. I want you to know that this violent mob do not represent our country. Police say they're working around the clock to identify more people involved in the violent disorder with more arrests expected in the coming days. Any person organising or taking part in the procession is committed. is committed an affair. We've been clear to the police that they have our full backing

in taking the strongest possible action against perpetrators. Anyone who engages in this kind of disorder needs to be clear that they will pay the price. The full force of the law will be visited on all those who are identified as having taken part in these activities. I mean, you know, it's obviously widespread in England's very small country. when we think, you know, the United States of America. Yeah, the size, just to give you a scope of this, when we think of something happening in America,

like say there's riots or something going on in New York or Portland, Oregon, it's, you know, people in Texas or other states may say, well, that's kind of far over there, but the UK is almost three times smaller than Texas we're sitting in right now. Just to give you an idea. So, I mean, this is very close and very, you know,

it hits home for everybody that lives there. Yeah. And so, you know, what happened was 10 were injured, three girls lost their lives in this, and the police detained a 17-year-old or they captured a 17-year-old man, and they drugged their feet on really releasing any type of information on that. So that led to a lot of speculation. What was being reported was he had Rwandan parents. He was a citizen of the U.S. born, I'm sorry, the U.K., born in the U.K., lived in Wales.

And the riots really kicked off, though, because there was a vigil really shortly after this for the girls that lost their lives. And at that vigil, police apprehended a person with a machete wearing, you know, all in black, and you can see video of that right here. And at this point is really when the people had enough in the UK. This is when people really started to kick off. And it really is important here to have a look at the events of the past five years, to understand what the people of the UK have been really just, what's been thrown in their lap. So like the U.S., reported this last week, the people in the U.K. have dealt with mass migration.

So this has been going on. This is a headline here. UK net migration in 2022 revised up to record 745,000. It says the ONS, as Office of National Statistics, said the population of England and Wales grew by an estimated 1% in the year to June 2022. The fastest rate since the baby boom in the 1960s, but this time it was driven by international migration. So on top of that, there's also a raging housing crisis that's been going on. So you have these forces coming down on the people that have lived there for a long time, really rapidly changing their society. And so people that are bringing up concerns, they have questions about this.

In comes this word around 2016, 2017, far right. And that is the label. Now, this word... We're hearing that here. I mean, they're using that here. You never hear conservative anymore. You know, there's no right and left. It's far right.

and left, you know. And it's a catch-all term. It's never really fully defined by government. But it's used to loop in. When these situations happen, it's used to loop in people for, you know, certain political agendas or certain responses. So let's look at just let's look at tracking this a little bit. In 2018, there's an article that came out.

It was looking at the monitoring extremists. So, of course, that's just a weird word, too. You're extreme? Okay. But Britain looks to better monitor extremists after the release from print. And at the time, we had the British Health Secretary of State, Saji Javid. And in that article, he said this. He was quoted by saying, ISIS, the world's largest terror group and right-wing groups.

They're still lumpling them two together. Have more in common than they acknowledge. He said they both exploit grievances, distort the truth, and undermine the values that hold us together. But it doesn't stop there. In 2019, the BBC goes with that same, picks up that same ball and runs with it. It says the unlikely similarities between the far-rightly. right in ice. And this is government and media purposely stoking these tensions. So you have the migration. You're literally talking about like a political party or group and terrorists and

lumping them together. Continuously. Right. Continuously. Not just not just someone a slip of the tongue or someone saying, well, these people, they kind of look, you know, literally they're, let's bridge this gap hard. All media for years on end, years on end. So at that point, this is what that powder keg is looked like in the UK. So this wasn't just an isolated incident, these tragic murders. This is this powder keg that was lit. And you almost look, you can see this, you can see this trajectory. It was only a matter of time.

But what I want to focus on is the government response because this is moving forward. This is really what people have to watch out for. And what are the two things the government's going to do? Well, one of them right now is controlling how people speak. speech, freedom of speech, that is directly under attack in the biggest way possible in the UK right now. And this is the headlines. Before we get, just so I have a full understand what we're talking about, because you're

talking, you know, you have the prime minister saying we won't tolerate racism. So it's my understanding that a lot of these, the migration is happening out of, is it Muslim countries, Africa, things like that, that is sort of, you know, coming into England. And I'm sure just as we have issues here, we are a meltdown. pot of so many different cultures. But when you just open your borders up all manner, we have, you know, there's some reports that Venezuela is basically, you know, opening up its jails and just letting everyone come over here.

I'm not saying they're all criminals, but you only need one or two to start really stressing people out, a couple of girls that are assaulted things, that the same thing's happening here in the United States of America. But really the government seems to, you know, as far as what's happening in England, England, they're basically just pointing out everyone that's asking questions about the dangers, what's going on here of these migrants. You're not allowed to do that.

Right, exactly. You know, it seems like if even one heinous crime like this was committed by someone that came into the country, it really should be looked at, as opposed to saying you really shouldn't question this because you may be a racist or, you know, whatever, whatever label that is put on the people. So as this happens, so on the back of these, what we're being called far right, riots. The government comes in. When you see this concerted media effort, all the media on the same talking point, that's obviously when we pay attention. So this is what happens. Southport

attack misinformation fuels far right discourse on social media. Then we have the telegraph going further. Unregulated social media disinformation is wrecking Britain. Free speech must come with accountability from TikTok influencers and newspaper editors. And then the New York Times even gets in on it. The UK riots were fomented online. Will social media companies act? So you can see this this pressure on the social media companies, on people's speech online, pointing to that and saying, it's not the government's fault. It's the people online having open discourse. That is the problem here.

And so what else did the UK government do? They activated a secret spy unit that was closed down during COVID because it was so it was so, it had so many issues on it. It was tracking journalists. It was tracking activists that were trying to keep the schools open, try to keep the country from being locked down. secret COVID era, spy agency brought in to monitor social media during riots. And this was the counter disinformation unit.

And that was used, as we know, to crack down on this dissent. But we're at this inflection point right now because the director of public prosecutions for England and Wales just came out yesterday and said this. Digal listen. The offense for incitement to racial hatred involves publishing or distributing material, which is insulting or abusive, which is intended to or likely to start racial hatred. So if you retweet that, then you're republishing that and then potentially you're committing that offence. And we do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media. Their job is to look for this material and then follow up with identification arrests and so forth. So it's really, really serious. People might

I think they're not doing anything harmful they are, and the consequences will be visited upon them. I think that may be the most chilling video we've played on this show. I agree. That's a democratic nation that is, you know, where we, you know, we left England, became the United States. But they've been our partners in the world in so many different ways. It's like our neighbors just decided to start tracking everyone, like, retorting everyone, like, retorting. tweeting, hey, did you see this article about immigrants, the number of immigrants coming across, and you see the level of crime that's happening by them?

That little, like that article, like an article like that just shows, you know, this is how many murders, robberies, whatever has been, you know, that happened because of immigrants coming across the border. We have the evidence of it. Sharing that article means this group of police are going to come to your house and have serious consequences and arrest you. And governments know that more speech is a statement. for social issues, for political issues.

So by cracking down and not allowing people to, I mean, the way he phrased that was not, hey, everybody, you just watch what you're posting, you got to be careful. That was deliberate intimidation tactics, and that's deliberately for a chilling effect. So that is going to take this powder keg and put a pressure cooker on top of it. It's not a good thing. So what else are they doing? Well, in 2019, Time Magazine wrote this about England, about the UK. And it said, Britain has more, more surveillance cameras per person than any country

except China. That's a massive risk to our society. Well, what do you do when you have a lot of surveillance cameras? Well, it's kind of the same thing you do when you make a lot of vaccines. You use them. So this is what Kier, the prime minister, Kier Starrmer said. He said, instead of addressing the root causes of maybe what caused this attack, I mean, a 17-year-old, why did he do this, mental health issues. No, instead, we're going to do this. Kier Starmar says facial recognition technology is the answer to far-right riots. So let's just surveil everybody with this live surveillance technology that we have more cameras than any other country except China per person. So Big Brother Watch is a nonprofit. They've been on this for four years trying to stall the

rollout of this facial recognition technology, knowing the danger of this. So as soon as they heard their prime minister say this, they immediately went, put out this press, release as a response, and it says this. They write, this AI surveillance turns members of the public into walking ID cards, is dangerously inaccurate and has no explicit legal basis in the UK. While it's common in Russia and China, live facial recognition is banned in Europe. To promise the country ineffective AI surveillance in these circumstances was frankly tone-deaf and will give the public absolutely no confidence that this government has the competence or conviction to get tough on the causes of these crimes and protect the public. Now, if you want to go to Big Brother

Watch four years ago, they started a petition to stop the roll out of these facial recognition technology cameras. You can sign that. It's almost 500, it's almost 50,000 people have signed this at this point. But what I want to look at right now is the deliberate stoking of fear, because this isn't over yet, and the media is still doing this. So just a couple days ago, you had this headline talking about 38 planned riots. And these are, in my opinion, these look like planted stories.

So you can- But a planned riot being like a planned march, I'm assuming. but they're assuming there's going to be other people coming in, or maybe they're supplying those people and creating conflict. But this is the right to assemble here in the United States of America. And though I am totally against ever, you know, in your assembling, ever, you know, committing acts of violence. Sure. The right to assemble is what we're talking about.

And they're just, they're immediately labeling these as riots now. Right. And think about this. When have you seen, you know, military intelligence or police intelligence come out and say, hey, we just had intelligence that Russia may bomb us tomorrow. So just a heads up. No, they keep that stuff quiet and they do their job because they don't want to let the public. They don't want to alert the public.

They don't want to scare them. This is the exact opposite. So check out just this reporting. UK riots planned by far right in 38 areas. Police treat leaked target list as credible threat. That's a scary topic. And you go in there. It says a supposed target list of 38 areas where riots are said to be planned on Wednesday has leaked on social media.

I mean, there's no verification there. And a police source, who, who, today said that the force was treating it as a credible threat. The source said it is difficult to identify what threats are credible, but so far the intelligence has been fairly solid. There's nothing, there's nothing of substance there. Just basically you walk away with that is be scared, stay in your house. This is a continual message. And then another, it gets even further than that. UK braces for day of unrest amid fears of 100 more far-right riots.

So now it's gone from 38 to 100. So it's just ramping up this fear, ramping up this fear coming into this weekend. And everyone's, you know, talk to people there that you and I know. And their families are scared to leave their houses because they don't know what's going on. They can't post anything on social media because they make it a knock on the door by the police. I mean, we're looking at the creation of a surveillance state in over a week that... It's amazing because we've been reporting on the fact that, you know, there's this huge sort of shift to a more liberal, you know, leadership in the UK over the last votes.

And I still sit here in sort of, I've said it so many times. I grew up a Democrat in Boulder, Colorado. And it seemed like what I was raised to believe in. We were like anti-war, love everybody, like peace, you know, hippies. And even in one of those reports, they're like the far right, you know, extremists. As they're saying in the news report, you see a couple like hippies with silver hair standing there. They look like my mom and my dad. I'm like, those aren't far right.

Those are hippies, you guys. Like, what has happened? But now the liberals, right? I guess in England are now getting on television saying if you share any information on the internet, we will arrest you. If you decide to assemble or speak or have any attempt at free speech, you will be arrested. We will not tolerate this. And it feels like just this authoritarian, you know, response, which is amazing because it's the same ones that are saying, you know, here in America and around, like defund the police.

They're not really against, I really am starting to think, they're not against police per se. What they want to do is create chaos, which is what's happening there, open up your borders, threaten people's jobs, threaten the neighborhood and everything that's going on, because you're not doing it appropriately. Everyone knows if we legally immigrate people,

and, you know, run them through a court system to prove that they need asylum and make sure that the kids that they're with are actually their kids and all these things, that's how a good society would work. This isn't that. This is just wide open takeover of your neighborhoods. Crime is on the rise.

And if you ask about it, then they say, oh, we have an answer. It's total authoritarianism, facial recognition software. And we'll bring in, you know, in America, we'll bring in the National Guard, whatever it takes to make sure that you don't assemble in the streets. I mean, it's really, it's so if far right is wanting to tweet each other and say, You know, hey, did you see this in the news? Then we'd assume far left is facial recognition software, authoritarianism, and arresting of civilians. You know, I think looking throughout history up until this moment, absolute power working through government takes on whatever form it needs to achieve its ends.

And whether it's Republican, Democrat, far right, far left, conservative, independent, fascist, communist, that's what we're looking at here. And so until this government backs off, will they receive? the rollout of facial recognition? Probably not. Will they make their police force smaller? I mean, they are arresting people right now. Are they not? I mean, this police force is active in the UK. It's not like a thing we're dreaming about in the future. People are getting knocks on their door and they're being arrested for things they've shared on the internet. I've seen reports just today of that, yes. Yes. I mean, what's really, and this is the thing that I hope that the people watching this show

or, you know, or getting this reporting anywhere else, I mean, we're in the middle of elections now. And I think we've got to really start asking ourselves, You know, is it possible the person I'm thinking of voting for would ever abuse their power and decide to take my right to free speech away? Would they ever in America, you know, decide to think they can arrest me for a piece of information that I shared? Do I think that those cameras I'm seeing everywhere will ever, could ever be used by someone I'm about to elect to, you know, recognize my face and turn me in if I'm having. hanging out with somebody that maybe shared something on the internet that I don't know about. Exactly. I mean, if you can't unequivocally say no way is the person I'm looking at capable of that,

then I hope people start thinking twice.